Ensuring Employee Retention in a Confident Job Market

Employees quit and start new jobs every month. That’s nothing new. But as someone working in HR, keeping tabs on trends in hiring (such as how many people get hired and leave their jobs every month) can help you develop more solid strategies for retention. As you learn about the shifts in the market, you’ll learn to develop more impactful strategies for new hire retention, make your hiring process more effective and give your employees the extra boost they need to stay around.

Know the Market

First, let’s look at some of the most recent numbers we have on the job market. For example, here are a few numbers from September of this year.

There were a total of 4.8 separations (which counts quitting, layoffs, and fires) in September

Here the math is pretty simple: The number of hires, openings, and separations were all about the same, which means the overall job market is steady. But as Jennifer Schramm (@SHRM_Research), Workforce Trends and Forecasting Specialist with Society for Human Resource Management, notes, you have to watch the numbers for a little while for them to be meaningful, since it’s changes to these numbers that should affect how you hire:

“We like to keep an eye on the quits rate because HR professionals know that when the quits rate goes up it is a sign that workers are growing more confident about the job market, and they may need to do more to ensure retention.”

Taking Preventative Measures

After you’ve noticed a change in the market and need to change your hiring strategies to match, the next step in ensuring your employees stay around longer is increasing how thorough you are with your hiring. Companies with high retention rates are often those with the best hiring practices. Dan Pickett (@dtpickett3), CEO of Infrastructure, outlines how taking greater pains in your hiring can increase your retention.

"Retention starts from the application process to screening applicants to choosing who to interview. It starts with identifying what aspects of culture and strategy you want to emphasize, and then seeking those out in your candidates . . . You have to look at this as a long game, and take steps to ensure you're doing it right by making sure each employee is completely engaged with and part of the company's ongoing success."

If you want your hires to stay around longer, assess for cultural fit, ask more questions about how they would handle situations which regularly occur at your company, and see if their work ethic matches what you’re looking for.

A Little Appreciation Goes a Long Way

Keep in mind that even after you’ve gone through your new, more thorough hiring process that you’ll have to work on retention on a regular basis. You have to know how to keep your new employees engaged on the job with new ideas, projects and work, but a little appreciation goes a long way as well.

A recent survey by Glassdoor shows that 53% of employees would stay at their company longer if their boss showed them more appreciation, and 81% of employees say they’re motivated to work harder. Without regular feedback, employees have little idea about how well they’re doing their job, or how it affects the company as a whole. By letting them know you’ve noticed their contributions, they’ll work harder and stay longer, too.

As we’ve shown, the amount of attention you need to pay to your employee retention depends on how the market is doing. But no matter what kind of market you’re in, if you want hires to stay long enough to develop into the great employees you know them to be, you need to make your hiring process a little more rigorous and show a little more appreciation for your employees after you’ve hired them during the onboarding process. That way, you’re ready for any shift in the job market with plenty of employees who’ll never want to leave. Take a look at Click Boarding’s employee onboarding software to get started!

Christine is responsible for Click Boarding’s sales, marketing and business development strategies. Leveraging her 18+ years of experience in the Human Capital Management space, Christine drives company growth through strategic partner relationships as well new customer acquisitions across the small to large enterprise markets.